Just when you think all the Vista hype is over, here are some cool new features of the OS that you soon won’t be able to live without. Business, Home Premium and Ultimate editions now include a program to back up and restore individual files, groups of files, or even the whole PC. Vista’s new snipping tool allows you to capture an image of any part of your screen (say goodbye to your Prt Scrn button). Vista can also generate a system health report to ensure your computer is operating at maximum efficiency. The Windows address bar performs like the address bar in IE (allowing you to visit websites) and like the Run command (allowing you to start programs and open documents). And finally Vista has one new feature exclusively for notebook users. The Windows Mobility Center lets you tweak display, volume, battery status, wireless connectivity and more.

Technorati Tags: vista, windows_vista, microsoft_windows_vista

An updated release of Peachtree became available this month, the culmination of roughly 18 months of development. Sage’s “Customer Connected Design Center” allowed hundreds of customers – actual Peachtree users – to take part in enhancements and features. Performance enhancements, more user-control capabilities and improvements for producing more specific information output are among many changes to the program. 100 new fields, 50 new filters and 30 new sorting options for information make Peachtree 2008 yet again one of the best accounting programs for small businesses and industry niches.

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Google complained earlier this month that Microsoft’s Instant Search feature in Windows Vista is anticompetitive. They claimed that Microsoft hardwired the search making it impossible for third party desktop search products (like Google Desktop Search) to integrate into the system efficiently. Microsoft responded, saying Service Pack 1 would allow third party searches to work somewhat more effectively. Google was not satisfied. The US District Court judge overseeing Microsoft’s antitrust settlement finally addressed the ongoing complaints days ago, announcing that they will ignore them. “Google is not a party in this suit” the judge said, stating instead that she would “stand in the shoes of consumers”.

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The crossover success of iTunes on Windows has prompted Apple to do it again. This time they’ll make the Safari Web browser available to users of Microsoft’s operating systems. The next edition of Safari (3.0) is now in beta and runs on Windows XP and Windows Vista, as well as the Mac OS X. The driving force behind the crossover is likely the iPhone. Apple is pitching Safari and Web-based applications for the highly anticipated new iPhone, due out in just days. The Apple iPod is already used by far more Windows users than Mac users.

Technorati Tags: safari, windows, browsers